Full disclosure: I’m not that big of a fan of Ernest Hemingway’s writing, but I find him a fascinating person. Everyone Behaves Badly is an intriguing and well written book about Hemingway in Paris in the 1920’s, and the lead-up to the writing and publication of The Sun Also Rises, his first novel. It’s a look into how ambitious Hemingway was in his desire to become a successful published author and how his style – spare, lean, direct, and the opposite of what was being published at the time – took the literary world by storm.

I’ve read other books about Hemingway, including The Paris Wife, which I also enjoyed, so I had an idea of what the Paris years were like. Everyone Behaves Badly filled in more of the details, especially about the friends and mentors (and other men’s wives, of course) Hemingway used in order to become successful. In addition to betraying his first wife (Hadley), by having a relationship with the woman who would become his second wife (Pauline), Hemingway betrayed his closest friends. He used their personalities and

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” So begins Daphne duMaurier’s classic novel of romantic suspense, Rebecca. I’ve read the book three times now – once as a teenager, once about twenty years ago, and again just recently. My daughter, who is nineteen, was sick and asked me to come into her room while she tried to go to sleep. I asked if she wanted me to read to her and she said yes. It’s a thrill to be able to read to a grown girl. She doesn’t ask for that often. I found Rebecca on her bookshelf. I knew she hadn’t read it, so I opened the book and began. She fell asleep within five pages, but I took the book back into my bedroom and continued reading by flashlight, so I wouldn’t wake my husband.

Rebecca takes place in England, where duMaurier was from. Her command of language is exquisite, and her descriptions of Manderley, the country mansion on the Cornish coast where the

I saw this Land Rover with the surfboards on the roof at the grocery story and I loved the way it looked. There’s something so alluring about the idea of traveling around the world, looking for great waves (or traveling anywhere looking for great waves). I would never do it. I’m not even a very good swimmer. And all I really know about surfing is that it involves boards and the ocean. But the whole concept is intriguing. In fact, I recently read the memoir Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan and I loved it. It took me into the middle of a world I knew nothing about and let me live and breathe it for a few days. That’s probably as close to surfing as I’ll ever get, but at least I got that far.